'I've spoken of the Shining City all my political life. …In my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, windswept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That's how I saw it, and see it still.'" Ronald Reagan

I recall taking the PSAT's my sophomore year, and while I have no idea what my score was, I recall I was the second highest score in our school, and was good enough to be a National Merit finalist and get a few scholarship offers.

But then I decided not to go to college after I graduated because I wanted to try my hand at photography. The scholarship offers all vanished. Didn't bother to take the SAT because I never thought I'd need it. And nobody else in my family had gone to college so I didn't exactly have a lot of people offering advice.

When I finally decided to apply to the Univ. of Washington a few years later, I was lucky to get in -- no SAT, and a transcript from an experimental high school that didn't give letter grades. How they decided to let me in, I'll never know.